Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  ‘That was the reason,’ answered Lushington, facing his adversary, but conscious that the necessity for holding his nose put him at a disadvantage as to his dignity.

  ‘It was very well done,’ said the Greek with gravity. ‘I should never have known you.’

  ‘Your own disguise is admirable,’ answered the Englishman, with cool politeness. ‘If I had not seen you without your mask the other day I should not have recognised you.’

  ‘Shall we go on?’ inquired Logotheti, turning to Margaret.

  ‘No,’ she answered, rather sharply. ‘Are you hurt?’ she inquired, looking at Lushington again.

  He was busy with his nose, which he had neglected for a few moments. He shook his head.

  ‘I won’t leave him here in this state,’ Margaret said to Logotheti.

  The Greek made a gesture of indifference, but said nothing. Meanwhile Lushington got so far as to be able to speak again.

  ‘Please go on,’ he said. ‘I can take care of myself, thank you. There are no bones broken.’

  Logotheti inwardly regretted that his adversary had not broken his neck, but he had tact enough to see that he must take Margaret’s side or risk losing favour in her eyes.

  ‘I really don’t see how we can leave you here,’ he said to Lushington. ‘Your bicycle is smashed. I had not realised that. I’ll put what’s left of it into the car.’

  He jumped out as he spoke, and before Lushington could hinder him he had hold of the broken wheel. But Lushington followed quickly, and while he held his nose with his left hand, he grabbed the bicycle with the other. It looked as if the two were going to try which could pull harder.

  ‘Let it alone, please,’ said Lushington, speaking with difficulty.

  ‘No, no’! protested Logotheti politely, for he wished to please Margaret. ‘You must really let me put it in.’

  ‘Not at all!’ retorted Lushington. ‘I’ll walk it to Chaville.’

  ‘But I assure you, you can’t!’ retorted the Greek. ‘Your hind wheel is broken to bits! It won’t go round. You would have to carry it!’

  And he gently pulled with both hands.

  ‘Then I’ll throw the beastly thing away!’ answered Lushington, who did not relinquish his hold. ‘It’s of no consequence!’

  ‘On the contrary,’ objected Logotheti, still pulling, ‘I know about those things. It can be made a very good bicycle again for next to nothing.’

  ‘All the better for the beggar who finds it!’ cried the Englishman. ‘Throw it over the fence!’

  ‘You English are so extravagant,’ said the Greek in a tone of polite reproach, but not relinquishing his hold.

  ‘Possibly, but it’s my own bicycle, and I prefer to throw it away.’

  Margaret had watched the contest in silence. She now stepped out of the car, came up to the two men and laid her hands on the object of contention. Logotheti let go instantly, but Lushington did not.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ said Margaret. ‘Give it to me!’

  Lushington had no choice, and besides, he needed his right hand for his nose, which was getting the better of him again. He let go, and Margaret lifted the bicycle into the body of the car herself, though Logotheti tried to help her.

  ‘Now, get in,’ she said to Lushington. ‘We’ll take you as far at the Chaville station.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he answered. ‘I am quite able to walk.’

  He presented such a lamentable appearance that he would have hesitated to get into the car with Margaret even if they had been on good terms. He was in that state of mind in which a man wishes that he might vanish into the earth like Korah and his company, or at least take to his heels without ceremony and run away. Logotheti had put up his glasses and shield, over the visor of his cap, and was watching his rival’s discomfiture with a polite smile of pity. Lushington mentally compared him to Judas Iscariot.

  ‘Let me point out,’ said the Greek, that if you won’t accept a seat with us, we, on our part, are much too anxious for your safety to leave you here in the road. You must have been badly shaken, besides being cut. If you insist upon walking, we’ll keep beside you in the car. Then if you faint, we can pick you up.’

  ‘Yes,’ assented Margaret, with a touch of malice, ‘that is very sensible.’

  Lushington was almost choking.

  ‘Do let me give you another handkerchief,’ said Logotheti, sympathetically. ‘I always carry a supply when I’m motoring — they are so useful. Yours is quite spoilt.’

  A forcible expression rose to Lushington’s lips, but he checked it, and at the same time he wondered whether anybody he knew had ever been caught in such a detestable situation. But Anglo-Saxons generally perform their greatest feats of arms when they are driven into a corner or have launched themselves in some perfectly hopeless undertaking. It takes a Lucknow or a Balaclava to show what they are really made of. Lushington was in a corner now; his temper rose and he turned upon his tormentors. At the same time, perhaps under the influence of his emotion, his nose stopped bleeding. It was scratched and purple from the fall, but he found another handkerchief of his own and did what he could to improve his appearance. His shoulders and his jaw squared themselves as he began to speak and his eyes were rather hard and bright.

  ‘Look here,’ he said, facing Logotheti, ‘we don’t owe each other anything, I think, so this sort of thing had better stop. You’ve been going about in disguise with Miss Donne, and I have been making myself look like some one else in order to watch you. We’ve found each other out and I don’t fancy that we’re likely to be very friendly after this. So the best thing we can do is to part quietly and go in opposite directions. Don’t you think so?’

  The last question was addressed to Margaret. But instead of answering at once she looked down and pushed some little lumps of dry mud about with the toe of her shoe, as if she were trying to place them in a symmetrical figure. It is a trick some young women have when they are in doubt. Lushington turned to Logotheti again and waited for an answer.

  Now Logotheti did not care a straw for Lushington, and cared very little, on the whole, whether the latter watched him or not; but he was extremely anxious to please Margaret and play the part of generosity in her eyes.

  ‘I’m very sorry if anything I’ve said has offended you,’ he said in a smooth tone, answering Lushington. ‘The fact is, it’s all rather funny, isn’t it? Yes, just so! I’m making the best apology I can for having been a little amused. I hope we part good friends, Mr. Lushington? That is, if you still insist on walking.’

  Margaret looked up while he was speaking and nodded her approbation of the speech, which was very well conceived and left Lushington no loophole through which to spy offence. But he responded coldly to the advance.

  ‘There is no reason whatever for apologising,’ he said. ‘It’s the instinct of humanity to laugh at a man who tumbles down in the street. The object of our artificial modern civilisation is, however, to cloak that sort of instinct as far as possible. Good morning.’

  After delivering this Parthian shot he turned away with the evident intention of going off on foot.

  None of the three had noticed the sound of horses’ feet and a light carriage approaching from the direction of Versailles. A phaeton came along at a smart pace and drew up beside the motor. Margaret uttered an exclamation of surprise, and the two men stared with something approaching to horror. It was Mrs. Rushmore, who had presumably taken a fancy for an airing as the day had turned out very fine. The coachman and groom had both seen Margaret and supposed that something had happened to the car.

  Before the carriage had stopped Mrs. Rushmore had recognised Margaret too, and was leaning out sideways, uttering loud exclamations of anxiety.

  ‘My dear child!’ she cried. ‘Good heavens! An accident! These dreadful automobiles! I knew it would happen!’

  Portly though she was, she was standing beside Margaret in an instant, clasping her in a motherly embrace and panting for breath. It was evidently too late
for Logotheti to draw his glasses and shield over his face, or for Lushington to escape. Each stood stock-still, wondering how long it would be before Mrs. Rushmore recognised him, and trying to think what she would say when she did. For one moment, it seemed as if nothing were going to happen, for Mrs. Rushmore was too much preoccupied on Margaret’s account to take the slightest notice of either of the others.

  ‘Are you quite sure you’re not hurt?’ she inquired anxiously, while she scrutinised Margaret’s blushing face. ‘Get into the carriage with me at once, my dear, and we’ll drive home. You must go to bed at once! There’s nothing so exhausting as a shock to the nerves! Camomile tea, my dear! Good old-fashioned camomile tea, you know! There’s nothing like it! Clotilde makes it to perfection, and she shall rub you thoroughly! Get in, child! Get in!’

  Quick to see the advantage of such a sudden escape, Margaret was actually getting into the carriage, when Mrs. Rushmore, who was kindness itself, remembered the two men and turned to Logotheti.

  ‘I will leave you my groom to help,’ she said, in her stiff French.

  Then her eyes fell on Lushington’s blood-stained face, and in the same instant it flashed upon her that the other man was Logotheti. Her jaw dropped in astonishment.

  ‘Why — good gracious — how’s this? Why — it’s Monsieur Logotheti himself! But you’ — she turned to Lushington again ‘you can’t be Mr. Lushington — good Lord — yes, you are, and in those clothes, too. And — what have you done to your face?’

  As her surprise increased she became speechless, while the two men bowed and smiled as pleasantly as they could under the circumstances.

  ‘Yes, I’m Lushington,’ said the Englishman. ‘I used to wear a beard.’

  ‘My chauffeur was taken ill suddenly,’ said the Greek without a blush, ‘and as Miss Donne was anxious to get home I thought there would be no great harm if I drove the car out myself. I had hoped to find you in so that I might explain how it had happened, for, of course, Miss Donne was a little — what shall I say? — a little — —’

  He hesitated, having hoped that Margaret would help him out. After waiting two or three seconds, Mrs. Rushmore turned on her.

  ‘Margaret, what were you?’ she asked with severity. ‘I insist upon knowing what you were.’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ Margaret answered, trying to speak easily, as if it did not matter much. ‘It was very kind of Monsieur Logotheti, at all events, and I’m much obliged to him.’

  ‘Oh, and pray, what has happened to Mr. Lushington?’ inquired Mrs. Rushmore.

  ‘I was on the wrong side of the road, and the car knocked me off my bicycle,’ added Lushington. ‘They kindly stopped to pick me up. They thought I was hurt.’

  ‘Well — you are,’ said Mrs. Rushmore. ‘Why don’t you get into the automobile and let Monsieur Logotheti take you home?’

  As it was not easy to explain why he preferred walking in his battered condition, Lushington said nothing. Mrs. Rushmore turned to her groom, who was English.

  ‘William,’ she said, ‘you must have a clothes-brush.’

  William had one concealed in some mysterious place under the box.

  ‘Clean Mr. Lushington, William,’ said the good lady.

  “‘Clean Mr. Lushington, William,’ said the good lady.”

  ‘Oh, thank you — no — thanks very much,’ protested Lushington.

  But William, having been told to clean him, proceeded to do so, gently and systematically, beginning at his neck and proceeding thence with bold curving strokes of the brush, as if he were grooming a horse.

  Instinctively Lushington turned slowly round on his heels, while he submitted to the operation, and the others looked on. They had ample time to note the singular cut of his clothes.

  ‘He used to be always so well dressed!’ said Mrs. Rushmore to Margaret in an audible whisper.

  Lushington winced visibly, but as he was not supposed to hear the words he said nothing. William had worked down to the knees of his trousers, which he grasped firmly in one hand while he vigorously brushed the cloth with the other.

  ‘That will do, thank you,’ said Lushington, trying to draw back one captive leg.

  But William was inexorable and there was no escape from his hold. He was an Englishman, and was therefore thorough; he was a servant, and he therefore thoroughly enjoyed the humour of seeing his betters in a pickle.

  ‘And now, my dear,’ said Mrs. Rushmore to Margaret, ‘get in and I’ll take you home. You can explain everything on the way. That’s enough, William. Put away your brush.’

  Margaret had no choice, since fate had intervened.

  ‘I’m very much obliged to you,’ she said, nodding to Logotheti; ‘and I hope you’ll be none the worse,’ she added, smiling at Lushington.

  Mrs. Rushmore bent her head with dignified disapproval, first to one and then to the other, and got into the carriage as if she were mounting the steps of a throne. She further manifested her displeasure at the whole affair by looking straight before her at the buttons on the back of the coachman’s coat after she had taken her seat. Margaret got in lightly after her and she scarcely glanced at Logotheti as the carriage turned; but her eyes lingered a little with an expression that was almost sad as she met Lushington’s. She was conscious of a reaction of feeling; she was sorry that she had helped to make him suffer, that she had been amused by his damaged condition and by his general discomfiture. He had made her respect him in spite of herself, just when she had thought that she could never respect him again; and suddenly the deep sympathy for him welled up, which she had taken for love, and which was as near to love as anything her heart had yet felt for a man.

  She knew, too, that it was really her heart, and nothing else, where he was concerned. She was human, she was young, she was more alive than ordinary women, as great singers generally are, and Logotheti’s ruthless masculine vitality stirred her and drew her to him in a way she did not quite like. His presence disturbed her oddly and she was a little ashamed of liking the sensation, for she knew quite well that such feelings had nothing to do with what she called her real self. She might have hated him and even despised him, but she could never have been indifferent when he was close to her. Sometimes the mere touch of his hand at meeting or parting thrilled her and made her feel as if she were going to blush. But she was never really in sympathy with him as she was with Lushington.

  ‘And now, Margaret,’ said Mrs. Rushmore after a silence that had lasted a full minute, ‘I insist on knowing what all this means.’

  Margaret inwardly admitted that Mrs. Rushmore had some right to insist, but she was a little doubtful herself about the meaning of what had happened. If it meant anything, it meant that she had been flirting rather rashly and had got into a scrape. She wondered what the two men were saying now that they were alone together, and she turned her head to look over the back of the phaeton, but a turn of the road already hid the motor car from view.

  Meanwhile Mrs. Rushmore’s face showed that she still insisted, and Margaret had to say something. As she was a truthful person it was not easy to decide what to say, and while she was hesitating Mrs. Rushmore expressed herself again.

  ‘Margaret,’ said she, ‘I’m surprised at you. It makes no difference what you say. I’m surprised.’

  The words were spoken with a slow and melancholy intonation that might have indicated anything but astonishment.

  ‘Yes,’ Margaret remarked rather desperately, ‘I don’t wonder. I suppose I’ve been flirting outrageously with them both. But I really could not foresee that one would run over the other and that you would appear just at that moment, could I? I’m helpless. I’ve nothing to say. You must have flirted when you were young. Try to remember what it was like, and make allowance for human weakness!’

  She laughed nervously and glanced nervously at her companion, but Mrs. Rushmore’s face was like iron.

  ‘Mr. Rushmore,’ said the latter, alluding to her departed husband, ‘would not have un
derstood such conduct.’

  Margaret thought this was very probable, judging from the likenesses of the late Ransom Rushmore which she had seen. There was one in particular, an engraving of him when he had been president of some big company, which had always filled her with a vague uneasiness. In her thoughts she called him the ‘commercial missionary,’ and was glad for his sake and her own that he was safe in heaven, with no present prospect of getting out.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, without much contrition. ‘I mean,’ she went on, correcting herself, and with more feeling, ‘I’m sorry I’ve done anything that you don’t like, for you’ve been ever so good to me.’

  ‘So have other people,’ answered the elder woman with an air of mystery and reproof.

  ‘Oh yes! I know! Everybody has been very kind — especially Madame Bonanni.’

  ‘Should you be surprised to hear that the individual who bought out Mr. Moon and made you independent, did it from purely personal motives?’

  Margaret turned to her quickly in great surprise.

  ‘What do you mean? I thought it was a company. You said so.’

  ‘In business, one man can be a company, if he owns all the stock,’ said Mrs. Rushmore, sententiously.

  ‘I don’t understand those things,’ Margaret answered, impatient to know the truth. ‘Who was it?’

  ‘I hardly think I ought to tell you, my dear. I promised not to. But I will allow you to guess. That’s quite different from telling, and I think you ought to know, because you are under great obligations to him.’

  ‘You don’t mean to say — —’ Margaret stopped, and the blood rose slowly in her face.

  ‘You may ask me if it was one of those two gentlemen we have just left in the road,’ said Mrs. Rushmore. ‘But mind, I’m not telling you!’

  ‘Monsieur Logotheti!’ Margaret leaned back and bit her lip.

  ‘You’ve made the discovery yourself, Margaret. Remember that I’ve told you nothing. I promised not to, but I thought you ought to know.’